THE    TWENTIETH  CENTURY: 


AN    ADDRKSS 


DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE  GRADUATING  CLASSES 


SEVENTY-FIRST  ANNIVERSARY 


OF 


LAW  SCHOOL 


June   34th,    1895, 


HON.  HENRY  B.  BROWN,  LL.D. 


OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  SUPREME  COURT. 


HOGGSON  &  ROBINSON, 

PRINTERS  TO  THE  LAW  DEPARTMENT  OF  YALE  UNIVERSITY, 

NEW  HAVKN,  CONN. 

1895. 


T 


53414 

1-n-n 


I 

!? 

i 

s 


ORATION. 


Mr,  President  and  Gentlemen  of  the  Graduating  Classes  : 

It  would  be  mere  affectation  in  me  to  deny 
the  pleasure  I  feel  in  escaping  for  a  day  from  the  tiresome 
monotony  of  judicial  labor,  and  standing  once  more,  a 
student  still,  among  students,  within  the  precincts  of  this 
ancient  university.  In  the  wonted  aspect  of  these  shaded 
streets,  in  the  familiar  presence  of  these  college  buildings 
and  in  the  comparative  repose  9f  this  beautiful  city,  I  seem 
to  breathe  again  the  air  of  the  cloister,  and  to  recall  as  if 
from  yesterday  a  similar  gathering  of  classmates  met  to- 
gether for  that  final  parting  which  marks  the  beginning 
of  professional  life.  In  the  almost  two-score  years  which 
have  elapsed  since  I  last  stood  before  a  similar  audience 
here,  the  thrifty  college  of  less  than  700  students  has  ex- 
panded into  the  great  university  of  2,400,  the  familiar  row 
of  brick,  which  represented  so  well  the  modest  architec- 
tural taste  of  the  eighteenth  century,  is  giving  way  to  the 
sumptuous  structures  needed  to  gratify  the  aspirations  of 
the  nineteenth — changes  which  are  only  a  reproduction 
upon  a  smaller  scale  of  the  more  important  changes,  which 
have  taken  place  throughout  the  world  and  given  to  the 
period  which  is  now  drawing  to  its  close,  its  material  and 
social  importance. 

In  our  retrospective  glance  at  this  period  let  us  picture 
to  ourselves  the  probable  subject  of  a  similar  address 
we  may  imagine  to  have  been  delivered  a  hundred 


years  ago  to  the  graduating  class  of  the  little  Law 
School  then  recently  established  at  Litchfield  which 
was  destined  to  play  so  important  a  part  in  the  educa- 
tion of  the  American  Bar.  The  first  thought  of  the 
speaker  would  have  been  to  congratulate  his  hearers  upon 
the  termination  of  the  embroilments  which  had  character- 
ized the  short  life  of  the  old  Confederacy,  the  adoption  of 
the  new  Constitution,  and  the  possibilities  which  a  more 
perfect  union  of  the  thirteen  original  States  must  have 
suggested.  His  hopes  would  have  led  him  to  predict  for 
the  newly  founded  government  a  great  future — his  appre- 
hensions would  have  led  him  to  fear  that  the  storms  it  had 
inherited  from  the  original  confederacy  would  wreck  it 
before  it  was  fairly  launched,  for  the  soul  of  John  Mar- 
shall, the  great  Chief  Justice,  had  not  yet  entered  into  the 
new  constitution  to  give- it  vigor,  stability  and  complete- 
ness. He  would  probably  have  inflamed  the  imaginations 
of  his  hearers  with  the  possibilities  of  the  coming  century, 
the  redemption  and  peopling  of  the  western  wilderness, 
the  rapid  growth  of  population,  the  probable  accession  of 
new  States,  the  conversion  of  the  Indians  (by  means  as  well 
understood  then  as  now)  and  the  certain  expansion  of  our 
territory  to  the  Mississippi.  Had  his  imagination  been 
peculiarly  fervid,  he  might  even  have  anticipated  the  pur- 
chase or  conquest  of  Louisiana  and  Florida  and  the  pos- 
sible extension  of  our  sovereignty  to  the  shores  of  the 
Pacific.  It  might  have  cooled  his  ardor,  could  he  have 
foreseen  that  the  three  republics  then  in  existence — Swit- 
zerland, France,  then  struggling  to  forget  the  awful 
agonies  of  the  Reign  of  Terror,  and  his  own,  would  be 
one  hundred  years  from  that  day  still  the  sole  representa- 
tives of  real  republicanism,  and  that  France,  after  having 


been  twice  a  Kingdom  and  twice  an  Empire,  was  still  in 
her  experimental  stage.  But  could  he  have  foretold  the 
history  of  Europe  and  of  Spanish  America  for  the  coming 
century,  he  would  have  realized  the  fact  that  liberty  is 
not  inconsistent  with  monarchy,  nor  despotism  with  a  re- 
public. 

But  however  brilliant  his  anticipations  of  the  future 
might  have  beefn,  he  would  have  utterly  failed  to  grasp 
the  tremendous  changes  the  nineteenth  century  was  to 
produce,  since  there  was  nothing  in  his  past  experience 
to  suggest  the  key-note  to  those  changes — in  its  inventions. 
Those  were  the  days  of  the  stage-coach,  the  sailing  packet 
and  the  mail  carrier.  There  was  little  in  this  particular 
to  distinguish  the  eighteenth  century  from  the  five  that 
had  preceded  it.  Gunpowder -and  the  printing  press  had 
done  a  great  work,  but  they  had  not  affected  materially 
the  social  life  of  the  people  ;  and  the  latest  of  them  was 
already  over  three  hundred  years  old.  True,  the  steam 
engine  had  been  invented  and  put  to  the  humble  use  of 
pumping  water,  and  Franklin  had  drawn  electricity  from 
the  clouds  ;  but  the  possibilities  of  steam  and  electricity  as 
factors  in  civilization  were  yet  undreamed  of.  People 
lived  much  as  they  had  lived  for  centuries  before,  rarely 
traveling  except  from  necessity,  reading  a  weekly  paper 
or  an  occasional  pamphlet,  if  at  all,  and  utterly  oblivious 
of  the  fact  that  the  cotton  gin  for  which  Eli  Whitney  had, 
three  years  before,  obtained  a  patent,  was  but  the  fore- 
runner of  a  series  of  brilliant  inventions  which  were 
destined  to  revolutionize  the  world,  and  in  comparison 
witli  which  all  the  prior  discoveries  since  the  Christian 
era  were  of  minor  importance. 

Unquestionably  the  foremost  of   these    inventions   are 


the  employment  of  steam  for  the  purposes  of  transporta- 
tion, and  of  electricity  for  the  transmission  of  intelligence. 
Both  came  into  general  use  during  the  last  decade  of  the 
first  half  of  the  century.  Both  have  measurably  changed 
the  face  of  nature.  Both  have  profoundly  affected  the 
inner  life  of  the  people.  If  we  owe  to  steam  the  enormous 
increase  in  immigration,  the  rapid  settlement  of  the  West 
and  the  partial  depopulation  of  the  East,  the  building  up 
of  great  cities  at  the  expense  of  the  rural  districts,  the 
magnitude  of  modern  commerce,  the  introduction  of 
foreign  languages,  habits  and  customs,  and  finally  (let  us 
not  despise  it  too  much)  the  annual  vacation  in  Europe, 
we  are  indebted  to  electricity  for  all  that  was  needed  to 
supplement  the  triumph  of  the  railway  and  the  steamship, 
—the  instant  communication  with  ever}'  part  of  the  world, 
the  prodigious  expansion  of  the  daily  press,  and  the  rapid 
and  general  diffusion  of  intelligence.  These,  however, 
are  but  the  primary  effects — effects  which,  though  of 
great  importance,  it  required  but  little  of  prophetic  wis- 
dom to  forecast.  They  have  been  dinned  into  our  ears 
for  half  a  century — every  school  boy  is  familiar  with  them, 
and  perhaps  I  may  even  owe  you  an  apology  for  mention- 
ing them. 

But  these — the  immediate  effects,  which  are  patent  to 
every  observer,  and  which  began  to  manifest  themselves 
as  soon  as  the  use  of  railways  and  telegraphs  became 
general,  are  greatly  inferior  in  their  economic  importance 
to  certain  secondary  effects,  which  have  become  apparent 
within  the  past  thirty  years,  and  which  threaten  not  only 
to  affect  the  political  future  of  every  State,  but  to  revolu- 
tionize the  entire  productive  industry  of  the  world.  It  is 
a  change  which  began  silently,  has  progressed  furtively 


but  relentlessly,  and  is  yet  only  at  the  threshold  of  its 
tremendous  possibilities.  So  unforeseen  was  it,  that  it 
may  be  said  to  have  stolen  upon  us  like  a  thief  in  the 
night.  It  may  be  summed  up  in  the  single  word — consoli- 
dation. Consolidation  in  politics,  in  business,  in  society. 
Its  first  manifestation  upon  a  great  scale  was  seen  in  the 
Franco-Italian  war  of  1859 — when  French  railways  en- 
abled Louis  Napoleon  to  mass  his  troops  in  the  valley  of 
the  Po,  and  with  the  aid  of  the  Piedmontese  to  wrest 
Lombardy  from  the  Austrians,  and  finally  to  consolidate 
the  petty  principalities  of  the  Latin  Peninsula  into  the 
new  Kingdom  of  Italy.  Steam  and  electricity  were 
equally  potent  factors  in  the  suppression  of  the  Re- 
bellion of  1861,  without  the  aid  of  which  the  war  might 
have  been  indefinitely  prolonged.  And  finally,  it  was  the 
railways  of  Germany  that  enabled  William  of  Prussia  to 
concentrate  his  armies  upon  the  frontiers  of  France,  and 
to  push  to  success  that  brilliant  campaign  which  ended  in 
the  capture  of  Paris,  and  the  founding  of  the  German 
Empire.  This  influence  is  everywhere  the  same — the  ab- 
sorption of  small  states — the  creation  of  large  ones — the 
centralization  of  power  in  the  hands  of  a  few — the  unifi- 
cation of  people  of  kindred  race  and  similar  language,  and, 
in  this  country,  a  vast  accession  to  the  power  of  the  Fed- 
eral Government.  Wise  men  may  differ  as  to  whether 
the  liberties  of  the  people  can  better  be  preserved  in  large 
states  or  in  small  ones.  History  doubtless  favors  the  lat- 
ter ;  but  the  historical  republics  had  neither  steam  nor 
electricity,  nor  the  general  diffusion  of  education  and  in- 
telligence they  have  brought  in  their  train.  In  producing 
the  evil,  (if  it  be  an  evil)  they  have  also  furnished  the 'an- 
tidote. The  nineteenth  century  has  given  birth  to  large 


8 

states,  but  at  the  same  time  it  has  curtailed  the  privileges 
of  the  great,  has  expanded  the  area  of  freedom,  and  en- 
trenched  the  people  in  their  natural  rights.  But  these 
speculations  are  of  little  value.  The  large  states  are  up- 
on us  and  overshadow  us.  They  have  come  to  stay,  and 
for  better  or  for  worse,  the  world  must  adapt  itself  to 
their  conditions. 

The  consolidating  influence  of  which  I  have  spoken  is 
not  less  manifest  in  matters  of  internal  economy ;  and  is 
as  potent  in  business  as  in  politics.  In  fact  it  may  be  said 
to  have  revolutionized  the  whole  system  of  production. 
Where  transportation  is  slow  and  expensive,  each  state 
becomes  a  manufacturing  community  of  its  own;  where 
it  is  cheap,  local  manufacturers  and  dealers  are  driven  to 
the  wall  by  the  competition  of  the  great  producers,  who 
manufacture  only  where  it  can  be  done  to  the  best  advan- 
tage. The  results  are  large  enterprises,  only  rendered 
possible  by  combinations  of  capital, — great  corporations 
monopolizing  the  production  of  all  the  comforts  and  many 
of  the  necessaries  of  life, — immense  farms  and  pastures 
flooding  the  markets  of  Europe  with  cheap  meats  and 
grain,  curtailing  the  rents  of  the  landlords  and  depressing 
the  value  of  their  lands, — the  crushing  out  of  small  produ- 
cers and  the  centralizing  of  production  where  labor  and 
material  can  be  obtained  the  cheapest. 

We  may  lament  the  disappearance  of  the  small  em- 
ployer— the  man  who  worked  with  his  hands  as  well  as 
his  brains  and  was  little  more  than  the  most  skillful  of  a 
dozen  workmen — we  may  even  become  pathetic  over  the 
loss  of  the  spinning  wheel  and  the  loom  of  our  grand- 
mothers ;  but  we  may  find  consolation  in  the  thought  that 
the  cost  of  production  has  been  steadily  growing  less, 


9 

that  the  comforts  and  even  the  luxuries  of  life  are  within 
the  reach  of  people,  who,  a  hundred  years  ago,  knew  not 
of  them,  and  that  the  profits  which  formerly  went  to  the 
small  producer  are  now  even  more  widely  distributed  in 
the  form  of  dividends  to  stockholders — little  rivulets  of 
wealth  which  trickle  through  all  classes  of  society,  and 
offer  the  rewards  of  thrift  to  the  humblest  households  in 
the  land.  If  the  head  of  the  great  corporation  takes  to 
himself  an  apparently  disproportionate  share  of  the  pro- 
fits, it  is  only  in  obedience  to  a  universal  law  that  the  man 
who  develops  extraordinary  capacity  in  any  direction  re- 
ceives an  extraordinary  reward.  A  lawyer  who  earns 
$5,000  a  year  may  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  do  his  work  as 
well  as  the  one  who  earns  $50,000,  but  in  the  tenth  case, 
the  latter  may  be  worth  to  his  .clients  every  dollar  he  costs 
them.  A  picture  by  Meisonnier  worth  $20,000  may  to  an 
unskilled  observer  be  scarcely  distinguishable  from  one 
worth  $200,  but  there  is  an  impalpable  something  which 
to  an  artistic  eye  stamps  one  as  the  work  of  a  great  artist 
and  the  other  as  that  of  an  ordinary  painter.  While 
the  manager  of  the  corporation  may  be  inferior  to  a  thou- 
sand of  his  employees  as  a  mere  handler  of  tools,  his  talent 
for  organization,  oversight  and  direction,  his  knowledge 
of  details,  his  anticipations  of  the  market  may  make  all  the 
difference  between  success  and  failure.  He  is  the  general 
of  the  army,  the  master  of  the  ship,  the  Speaker  of  the 
House,  the  Prime  Minister  of  the  Cabinet,  and  his  talent 
for  leadership  is  not  to  be  measured  by  ordinary  stand- 
ards. The  refusal  to  recognize  this  ability  has  been  fatal 
to  nearly  every  scheme  for  co-operative  production. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  material  changes  of  the  nineteenth 
century  as  furnishing  the  key  note  to   the  progress   of 


10 

civilization  during  that  period.  But,  what  is  more  strictly 
of  personal  interest  to  us,  the  law,  conservative  as  it  is, 
has  not  been  at  a  standstill.  While  its  fundamental  rules 
have  remained  and  must  always  remain  the  same  because 
they  are  founded  upon  immutable  principles  of  justice, 
legislation  has  abolished  much  of  what  was  intended  as  a 
wholesome  restraint  upon  individual  liberty,  and  has 
almost  revolutionized  the  practical  administration  of  the 
law.  It  has  done  away  with  the  ancient  tenures  of  real 
estate  that  grew  out  of  the  feudal  system,  and  made  the 
transfer  of  land  almost  as  simple  as  that  of  personal 
property  ;  it  has  emancipated  the  married  woman  from 
the  chains  of  coverture,  and  has  not  only  secured  to  her, 
by  statute,  rights  once  grudgingly  conceded  by  Courts  of 
Equity,  but  has  made  of  her  a  distinct  entity  from  her 
husband,  and  armed  her  with  all  the  weapons  necessary 
for  the  protection  of  her  natural  rights :  it  has  put  an  end 
to  imprisonment  for  debt  and  created  a  homestead  ex- 
emption :  it  has  swept  away  in  most  of  the  States  the 
ancient  forms  of  actions  and  approximated  pleadings  to 
the  models  of  the  civil  law  :  it  has  opened  the  door  of  the 
witness  box  to  parties  and  interested  witnesses,  abolished 
grand  juries  in  several  of  the  States,  simplified  indict- 
ments for  murder  and  restricted  the  number  of  capital 
crimes.  The  character  of  litigation  has  changed  as  much 
as  the  law  itself.  The  lawyer  of  the  last  century  looked 
askant  at  a  Court  of  Equity — brought  his  action  at  com- 
mon law  and  demanded  a  jury  of  his  peers.  He  had 
imbibed  the  prejudicies  of  Lord  Coke  against  tribunals 
proceeding  according  to  the  course  of  the  civil  law,  and 
thought  his  chances  of  success  there  were  measured  by 
the  length  of  the  Chancellor's  foot.  But  we  have  changed 


11 

all  that.  The  multiplicity  of  corporations,  the  enormous 
growth  of  the  patent  system  and  of  the  internal  commerce 
of  the  country  have  given  rise  to  questions  with  which 
juries  are  incompetent  to  deal.  The  result  is  that  the 
great  litigation  of  the  country  is  now  carried  on  in  Courts 
of  Equity  and  Admiralty.  In  some  States  juries  have 
almost  disappeared  except  in  criminal  cases  and  actions 
for  torts,  where  their  well  known  generosity  still  finds 
ample  scope — in  nearly  all  there  is  a  large  proportionate 
decrease.  Forensic  eloquence  has  declined,  and  the  man 
who  can  state  clearly  a  complicated  series  of  facts  has 
taken  the  place  of  the  typical  lawyer  of  the  last  genera- 
tion, who  could  move  a  jury  to  tears.  Where  there  is  a 
choice  of  remedies,  the  resort  is  usually  to  a  Court  of 
Equity ;  and  large  interests  are  treated  as  safer  in  the 
hands  of  a  single,  upright,  passionless  judge,  or  bench  of 
judges,  than  in  those  of  the  average  jury.  It  is  certainly 
a  tribute  to  the  purity  of  the  American  judiciary  that 
this  confidence  is  so  rarely  misplaced,  and  that  their 
decisions  are  so  seldom  the  result  of  fear,  favor,  affection 
or  the  hope  of  reward. 

I  have  thus  briefly  spoken  of  the  changes  of  the  past 
century  to  emphasize  the  point  I  desire  to  urge  upon 
your  attention,  that  you  are  entering  the  arena  of  pro- 
fessional life  at  a  more  than  usually  critically  period. 
Old  things  are  rapidly  passing  away,  and  the  question 
presses  itself  upon  us, — what  will  the  Twentieth  Century 
furnish  to  take  their  place  ?  The  problem  whether  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  embodied  a  feasible 
plan  of  government  is  already  settled.  Weak  spots  have 
undoubtedly  been  developed — some  changes  seem  almost 
imperative ;  but  it  still  remains  the  most  marvellous  work 


12 

of  constructive  genius  that  was  ever  created.  It  has 
grown  with  each  decade  in  the  affection  of  the  people  : 
the  danger  is,  not  that  it  will  be  changed,  but  that  it  will 
be  regarded  as  too  sacred  to  be  changed — a  product  of 
superhuman  wisdom — a  mere  fetish.  If  the  power  of 
the  Federal  Government  has  been  strengthened,  that  of 
the  States  has  not  been  materially  impaired.  The  country 
has  survived  the  shock  of  a  great  war.  The  loyalty  of 
the  South  is  unquestioned,  and  there  has  never  been  a 
time  when  strife  between  different  sections  seemed  less 
probable  than  at  present. 

The  man  who  should  assume  to  prophecy  what  the 
Twentieth  Century  will  bring  forth  is  likely  to  be  as  far 
astray  as  the  hypothetical  speaker  I  mentioned,  who 
failed  to  take  account  of  the  inventions  of  the  nineteenth. 
At  the  same  time,  speculations  based  upon  an  existing 
state  of  things  are  not  wholly  useless.  If  they  fail  to 
anticipate  every  contingency  they  may  at  least  provide 
for  some.  If  they  are  an  uncertain  guide  for  our  future 
action  they  may  serve  to  point  out  to  us  our  immediate 
duty.  There  are  certain  rules  of  human  conduct  which 
are  obligatory  at  all  times  and  under  all  circumstances. 
Of  these  are  integrity,  morality  and  industry.  Let  us 
hope  the  time  may  never  come  when  they  will  fail  to 
receive  their  reward. 

It  is  one  of  the  ancient  maxims  of  the  law  that  a  state 
of  things  once  proven  to  exist  is  presumed  to  continue. 
So  we  may  safely  assume  that  the  tendencies,  which  the 
last  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  has  developed,  will  be 
prolonged  into  the  twentieth,  that  the  great  powers  of 
Europe,  which  have  already  parcelled  out  among  them- 
selves almost  the  entire  continent  of  Africa,  will  look  for 


13 

new  fields  of  conquest  in  the  extreme  East;  that  the 
process  of  absorption  will  go  on  with  the  usual  indiffer- 
ence to  the  wishes  of  the  native  populations,  and  that 
another  hundred  years  may  see  the  entire  Eastern 
hemisphere  under  their  control.  It  will  be  your  duty  to 
see  that  their  rapacity  does  not  extend  to  the  Western. 
The  lust  of  conquest,  like  that  of  acquisition,  knows  no 
bounds. 

In  the  domain  proper  of  the  law,  the  reforms  have 
already  been  so  sweeping-  that  the  future  seems  to  promise 
more  of  conservation  than  of  change.  Justice  is  the  same 
at  all  times,  and  if  laws  are  framed  upon  principles  of 
exact  justice  and  equal  rights  to  all,  and  are  conformable 
to  the  habits  and  traditions  of  the  people,  changes  will  be 
limited  to  the  meeting  of  new  exigencies  as  they  arise.  I 
look,  however,  to  a  greatly  increased  efficiency  in  the 
administration  of  the  law  which,  in  many  of  the  States,  is 
most  unsatisfactory.  The  very  fact  that  lynchings  out- 
number the  legal  executions  is  strong  evidence  of  a  feeble 
enforcement  of  the  criminal  statutes.  The  fact  that  such 
lynchings  are  most  frequent  in  States  where  the  accused 
is  most  perfectly  protected  by  statutory  guaranties, 
indicates  a  popular  opinion  that  such  guaranties  are  made 
use  of  to  defeat  justice  and  not  to  secure  it.  Let  the 
people,  who  are,  in  the  main,  law  abiding,  or  at  least 
determined  that  others  shall  be  so,  once  become  satisfied 
that  the  law  is  being  used  to  set  the  guilty  free,  and 
irregular  methods  of  wreaking  vengeance  are  inevitable. 
A  rigorous  enforcement  of  the  law  is  therefore  as  neces- 
sary for  the  protection  of  the  innocent  as  to  the  punish- 
ment of  the  guilty.  I  look  for  the  time  when  the  techni- 
calities which  hedge  about  the  administration  of  criminal 


14 

law  and  seem  as  precious  to  the  lawyers  of  the  present 
century  as  the  rules  of  special  pleading  did  to  those  of 
the  last,  will  be  swept  away  and  every  case  be  squarely 
settled  upon  its  merits.  I  look  for  the  spread  of  codifica- 
tion, for  the  abolition  of  grand  juries,  and  of  the  rule  of 
unanimity,  at  least  in  civil  cases,  for  a  reduction  in  the 
time  consumed,  and  the  enormous  expense  to  taxpayers 
of  jury  trials,  and  for  a  greatly  simplified  system  of  regis- 
tration of  deeds.  If  we  had  more  independent  judges 
who  would  conduct  trials  instead  of  listening  to  them, 
and  more  intelligent  juries,  there  would  be  less  complaint 
of  the  mal-administration  of  justice. 

The  important  changes  of  the  Twentieth  Century,  how- 
ever, promise  to  be  social  rather  than  legal  or  political, 
and  as  I  have  entire  confidence  that  in  a  free  country  the 
lawyers  will  always  be  leaders  of  public  opinion,  and  that 
the  American  Bar  especially  will  maintain  its  supremacy 
in  the  halls  of  legislation,  it  is  to  you  as  a  component  part 
of  social  state  of  the  future,  that  I  address  myself.  While 
the  signs  of  the  material  development  and  prosperity  of 
the  country  were  never  more  auspicious  than  at  present, 
it  is  not  to  be  denied  that  the  tendencies  of  the  past  thirty 
years,  to  which  I  have  already  called  attention,  have  pro- 
duced a  state  of  social  unrest  which  augurs  ill  for  its  fu- 
ture tranquility.  The  processes  of  combination  have 
resulted  not  only  in  putting  practically  the  entire  manu- 
facturing industry  of  the  country  into  the  hands  of  cor- 
porations, but  have  enabled  the  latter  to  put  an  end  to 
competition  among  themselves  by  the  creation  of  trusts, 
to  monopolize  the  production  of  a  particular  article.  It  is 
doubtful  if,  even  during  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  and  James, 
when  grants  of  monopolies  by  the  Crown,  became  the  ob- 


15 

ject  of  such  public  outcry  that  a  statute  was  passed  to 
suppress  them,  monopolies  have  ever  fastened  themselves 
upon  the  necessaries  of  life  to  the  extent  they  have  done 
within  the  past  twenty  years — and  that,  too,  in  a  country 
where  manufactures  and  trade  are  absolutely  free  and  un- 
restricted. 

Upon  the  other  hand,  labor,  taking  its  cue  from  capital, 
though  more  slowly,  because  less  intelligent  and  alert  to 
its  own  interests,  is  gradually  consolidating  its  various 
Trade  Unions  with  the  avowed  object  of  dictating  the 
terms  upon  which  the  productive  and  transportation  in- 
dustry of  the  country  shall  be  carried  on.  The  ancient 
war  between  capital  and  labor  which  has  been  waged  with 
more  or  less  bitterness  since  the  day  when  capitalists  and 
laborers  began  to  constitute  distinct  classes,  bids  fair  to 
array  their  respective  armies  in  two  hostile  camps  to  do 
battle  for  the  command  of  the  productive  forces  of  the 
country.  The  reconciliation  of  this  strife,  if  reconciliation 
be  possible,  is  the  great  social  problem  which  will  con- 
front you,  as  you  enter  upon  the  stage  of  professional 
life. 

That  the  solution  of  this  does  not  lie  in  the  destruction 
of  private  property  is  as  certain  as  that  the  civilized  world 
will  not  return  to  barbarism.  National  socialism  has 
never  been  found  except  among  primitive  types  of  people, 
and  the  history  of  civilization  for  the  past  four  thousand 
years  has  been  largely  the  history  of  individuals  who  have 
sought  to  acquire  property  for  themselves,  and  to  protect 
it  from  the  rapacity  of  their  neighbors.  The  fruits  of  this 
long  struggle  are  not  going  to  be  abandoned  at  the  behest 
of  a  few  theorists,  however  honest,  who  imagine  they  see 
in  the  abolition  of  property  a  panacea  for  all  the  evils 


16 

which  the  acquisition  ot  such  property  entails.  Under 
our  present  social  system,  with  all  its  faults,  the  civilized 
world  is  constantly  growing  richer,  freer,  more  prosper- 
ous— the  richer,  less  ostentatious  in  the  display  of  their 
wealth — the  poorer,  better  housed,  better  clad  and  better 
fed  than  ever  before.  Certainly,  the  burden  is  upon  them 
who  contend  that  this  civilization  is  a  failure.  Nothing  can 
demonstrate  the  soundness  of  their  principles  so  well  as 
a  practical  test  of  socialism  upon  a  large  scale.  If 
a  successful  experiment  of  that  kind  could  be  offered  to 
the  world,  they  might  have  some  title  to  contend  that  civili- 
zation should  be  reorganized  upon  that  model.  It  must 
be  confessed,  however,  that  the  efforts  heretofore  made 
in  that  direction  have  rarely  met  the  expectations  of  their 
founders. 

The  truth  is  that  distinctions  in  wealth  within  reason- 
able limits,  so  far  from  being  objectionable,  are  a 
positive  blessing,  even  to  the  poor,  in  the  opportunity 
they  afford  for  a  diversity  of  labor  and  of  talents.  The 
census  of  1890  shows  that  if  the  entire  property  of  the 
country  were  equally  divided,  each  inhabitant  would  have 
$1,036.  Imagine  such  division  to  be  made,  and  by  some 
legal  magic  to  become  permanent,  every  one  with  the  ne- 
cessaries of  life,  but  with  few  of  its  comforts,  and  none  of 
its  luxuries.  With  no  reward  for  industry  and  no  punish- 
ment for  idleness,  what  would  be  the  proportion  of  the 
industrious  to  the  idle?  Where  would  be  the  incentive 
to  labor?  What  would  become  of  the  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands who  are  engaged  in  providing  luxuries  for  the  rich, 
and  in  ministering  to  their  pleasures?  What  of  the  archi- 
tects, the  painters,  the  sculptors,  the  manufacturers  of  car- 
riages, pianos,  jewelry,  and  the  thousand  and  one  articles 
of  this  description,  were  the  demands  for  them  suddenly 


17 

to  cease?  The  truth  is,  the  whole  fabric  of  civilization  is 
built  upon  the  sanctity  of  private  property.  Were  this 
foundation  to  be  taken  away,  the  structure  would  crumble 
into  ruins. 

While  it  is  entirely  true  that  the  business  methods  of 
the  past  thirty  years  have  tended  to  increase  enormously 
the  fortunes  of  a  few,  and  thus  to  widen  the  gulf  between 
the  very  rich  and  the  very  poor,  it  is  wholly  untrue  that 
the  poor  as  a  class  are  either  absolutely  or  relatively 
poorer  than  before.  Indeed  the  number  of  small  but  com- 
fortable homes  in  every  part  of  the  country  as  well  as  the 
reports  of  savings  banks,  building  associations  and  insur- 
ance companies  prove  incontestably  that  the  poor  have 
shared  in  the  prosperity  of  the  rich,  and  that  the  average 
standard  of  comfort  was  never  higher  than  at  present. 
The  average  working-man  of  to-day  lives  better,  and  pos- 
sesses more  of  the  comforts  of  life  than  the  average  noble 
of  six  hundred  years  ago.  The  sins  of  wealth,  though 
many  and  grievous,  have  not  generally  been  aimed  directly 
at  the  oppression  of  the  poor. 

While  I  feel  assured  that  the  social  disquietude  of 
which  I  have  spoken  does  not  point  to  the  destruction  of 
private  property,  it  is  not  improbable  that  it  will  result  in 
the  gradual  enlargement  of  the  functions  of  government, 
and  the  ultimate  control  of  natural  monopolies.  If  the 
government  may  be  safely  entrusted  with  the  transmis- 
sion of  our  letters  and  papers,  I  see  no  reason  why  it  may 
not  also  of  our  telegrams  and  parcels,  as  is  almost  uni- 
versally the  case  in  Europe,  or  of  our  passengers  and 
freight,  through  a  State  ownership  of  railways,  as  in  Ger- 
many, France,  Austria  and  Norway  ?  If  the  State  owns  its 
highways,  why  may  it  not  also  own  its  railways?  If  a 


18 

municipality  owns  its  streets,  and  keeps  them  paved,  sew- 
ered and  cleansed,  why  may  it  not  also  light  them,  water 
them  and  transport  its  citizens  over  them  so  far  as  such 
transportation  involves  a  monoply  of  their  use?  Indeed 
wherever  the  proposed  business  is  of  a  public  or  semi- 
public  character,  and  requires  special  privileges  of  the 
State  or  a  partial  delegation  of  governmental  powers,  such 
for  instance  as  the  condemnation  of  land,  or  a  special  use 
or  disturbance  of  the  public  streets  for  the  laying  of  rails, 
pipes  or  wires,  there  would  seem  to  be  no  sound  reason 
why  such  franchises,  which  are  for  the  supposed  benefit 
of  the  public,  should  not  be  exercised  directly  by  the  pub- 
lic. Such,  at  least,  is  the  tendency  in  modern  legislation  in 
nearly  every  highly  civilized  state  but  our  own,  where 
great  corporate  interests  by  putting  forward  the  dangers 
of  paternalism  and  socialism,  have  succeeded  in  securing 
franchises  which  properly  belong  to  the  public.  The  fear, 
too,  that  these  monopolies  may  be  used  for  political  pur- 
poses has  hitherto  proved  an  insuperable  objection  to 
their  exercise  by  the  State  ;  but  the  development  of  Civil 
Service  Reform  has  of  late  been  so  rapid  and  satisfactory 
that  its  introduction  into  this  new  field  of  usefulness 
would  follow  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  would  obviate  the 
most  formidable  difficulty  in  the  way  of  the  proposed 
change.  Should  the  assumption  of  these  natural  monopo- 
lies by  foreign  States  and  municipalities  prove  as  success- 
ful as  they  now  promise,  the  question  which  will  confront 
the  legislatures  of  the  Twentieth  Century  will  be,  not 
whether  these  extensions  of  governmental  functions  are 
socialistic  in  their  tendencies,  but  how  long  this  country 
can  afford  to  lag  behind  others  which  we  have  been  taught 
to  look  upon  as  conservative  and  inert.  Progress  in  this 


19 

direction  should  undoubtedly  be  made  with  great  caution, 
and  each  step  should  be  taken  in  the  assurance  that  the 
last  one  has  already  been  vindicated  by  the  result. 

While  I  have  no  doubt  of  the  ultimate  settlement  of  our 
social  problems  upon  a  reasonable  and  judicious  basis, 
there  are  undoubtedly  certain  perils  which  menace  the 
immediate  future  of  the  country,  and  even  threaten  the 
stability  of  its  institutions.  The  most  prominent  of  the,se 
are  municipal  misgovernment,  corporate  greed and  the  tyranny 
of  labor.  The  dangers  which,  a  hundred  years  ago,  threat- 
ened the  very  existence  of  the  new  constitution  have  all 
happily  passed  away  ;  but  these,  which  were  then  unsus- 
pected, have  risen  to  take  their  place. 

Municipal  misgovernment  has  come  upon  us  with  uni- 
versal suffrage  and  the  growth  of  large  cities — and  in 
general  seems  to  flourish  in  a  ratio  proportioned  to 
the  size  of  the  city.  Why  a  system  of  government 
which,  upon  the  whole,  works  well  in  small  towns,  and 
even  in  States  of  considerable  size,  should  break  down  so 
completely  when  applied  to  large  cities  may  seem  strange 
at  first,  but  after  all  it  is  not  difficult  of  solution.  The 
activities  of  urban  life  are  so  intense,  the  pursuit  of 
wealth  or  pleasure  so  absorbing,  as,  upon  the  one  hand,  to 
breed  an  indifference  to  public  affairs ;  and  upon  the 
other,  the  expenditures  are  so  large,  the  value  of  the 
franchises  at  the  disposal  of  the  cities  so  great,  and  the 
opportunities  for  illicit  gain  so  manifold,  that  the  muni- 
cipal legislators,  whose  standard  of  honesty  is  rarely 
higher  than  the  average  of  those  who  elect  them,  fall  an 
easy  prey  to  the  designing  and  unscrupulous.  Franchises 
which  ought  to  net  the  Treasury  a  large  sum  are  bartered 
away  for  a  song,  privileges  which  ought  to  be  freely 


20 

granted  in  the  interest  of  the  public  are  withheld,  till 
those  who  are  supposed  to  be  immediately  benefited 
will  consent  to  pay  for  them,  gross  favoritism  is  shown  in 
the  assessment  of  property  for  taxation,  great  corpora- 
tions are  permitted  to  encumber  the  streets  and  endanger 
the  lives  of  citizens,  while  every  form  of  vice  which  can 
be  made  to  pay  for  the  privilege,  is  secretly  tolerated. 
The  consequences  of  all  this  is  thus  depicted  by  a  recent 
English  writer  who  has  made  a  study  of  our  municipal 
institutions:  "I  have  watched  the  rapid  evolution  of 
Social  Democracy  in  England.  I  have  studied  Autocracy 
in  Russia  and  Theocracy  in  Rome,  and  I  must  say  that 
no  where,  not  even  in  Russia,  in  the  first  years  of  the 
reaction  occasioned  by  the  murder  of  the  late  Czar,  have 
I  struck  more  abject  submission  to  a  more  soulless 
despotism  than  that  which  prevails  among  the  masses  of 
the  so-called  free  American  citizens,  when  they  are  face 
to  face  with  the  omnipotent  power  of  the  corporations." 

Granting  this  to  be  overdrawn,  for  I  am  unwilling  to 
believe  that  corporations  are  solely  responsible  for  our 
municipal  misgovernment,  the  fact  remains  that  bribery 
and  corruption  are  so  general  as  to  threaten  the  very 
structure  of  society.  Indeed,  we  are  being  slowly  driven 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  best  governed  city  in  the 
country,  I  had  almost  said  the  only  well  governed  large 
city,  is  administered  upon  principles  which  amount  to  a 
complete  negation  of  the  whole  democratic  system. 
Universal  suffrage,  which  it  was  confidently  supposed 
would  enure  to  the  benefit  of  the  poor  man,  is  so  skillfully 
manipulated  as  to  rivet  his  chains,  and  to  secure  to  the 
rich  one  a  predominance  in  politics  he  had  never  enjoyed 
under  a  restricted  system.  Probably  in  no  country  in  the 


21 

world  is  the  influence  of  wealth  more  potent  than  in  this, 
and  in  no  period  of  our  history  has  it  been  more  master- 
ful than  now.  So  far  as  such  influence  is  based  upon 
superior  intelligence,  and  is  exerted  for  the  public  good, 
it  is  doubtless  legitimate — so  far  as  it  is  used  to  secure  to 
wealth  exceptional  privileges,  to  trample  upon  the  rights 
of  the  public,  to  stifle  free  discussion  or  to  purchase 
public  opinion  by  a  subsidy  of  the  press,  it  invites  meas- 
ures of  retaliation  which  can  scarcely  fail  to  be  disastrous. 
Mobs  are  never  logical,  and  are  prone  to  seize  upon 
pretexts  rather  than  upon  reasons,  to  wreak  their  ven- 
geance upon  whole  classes  of  society.  There  was  probably 
never  a  flimsier  excuse  for  a  great  riot  than  the  sympa- 
thetic strike  of  last  summer,  but  back  of  it  were  substantial 
grievances  to  which  the  conscience  of  the  city  seems  to 
have  finally  awakened.  If  wealth  will  not  respect  the 
rules  of  common  honesty  in  the  use  of  its  power,  it  will 
have  no  reason  to  expect  moderation  or  discretion  on  the 
part  of  those  who  resist  its  encroachments. 

The  misgovernment  of  which  I  have  spoken  is  so  noto- 
rious and  so  nearly  universal,  that  it  is  useless  to  attempt 
to  ignore  it,  or  expect  that  it  will  cure  itself.  Whether 
the  blame  lies  chiefly  upon  him  who  gives,  or  upon  him 
who  receives  a  bribe,  it  is  evident  the  temptation  must  be 
removed,  either  by  destroying  the  inducement,  or  by  ele- 
vating the  character  of  those  who  are  charged  with  the 
administration  of  the  government.  The  fault  is  not  that 
of  one  class  alone.  If  the  higher  classes  evade  their  just 
responsibilities,  the  lower  will  not  fail  to  profit  by  their 
example.  If  the  rich  are  seen  to  escape  taxation  by 
bribing  assessors  or  by  fraudulent  removals  from  the  city, 
the  poor  will  not  hesitate  to  avenge  themselves  in  the 


22 

coarser  way  of  accepting  bribes.  Whether  the  remedy 
for  all  this  lies  in  raising  the  character  of  the  electorate, 
by  limiting  municipal  suffrage  to  property  holders,  or  in 
government  by  commissions,  is  a  question  which  will  not 
fail  to  demand  your  attentive  consideration.  The  great, 
the  unanswerable  argument  in  favor  of  universal  suffrage 
is,  not  that  it  ensures  a  better  or  purer  government,  but 
that  all  must  be  contented  with  a  government  in  which  all 
have  an  equal  voice.  If  it  be  deficient  in  this  particular, 
if  it  fail  to  secure  the  poor  against  the  oppression  of  the 
rich,  or  the  rich  against  a  destruction  of  their  property  by 
the  poor, —  in  short,  if  the  representatives  of  the  people 
betray  their  trusts,  it  is  pro  tanto  a  failure,  and  another 
method  of  representation  should  be  adopted.  If  we  can- 
not have  government  by  the  whole  people,  let  us  have 
government  by  the  better  classes  and  not  by  the  worst. 

I  have  spoken  of  corporate  greed  as  another  source  of 
peril  to  the  State.  Corporations  are  a  necessity  in  every 
civilized  state.  Great  enterprises  cannot  be  carried  on 
without  the  aggregation  of  capital  and  the  limitation  of 
liability,  which  distinguish  them  from  ordinary  partner- 
ships. They  have  a  practical  monopoly  of  land  transpor- 
tation, of  mining,  manufacturing,  banking  and  insurance ; 
and  within  their  proper  sphere  they  are  a  blessing  to  the 
community.  On  the  other  hand,  the  ease  with  which 
charters  are  procured  has  produced  great  abuses.  Cor- 
porations are  formed  for  trading  or  other  analogous  pur- 
poses, with  the  design  of  crushing  out  rival  dealers  — 
often  with  a  view,  not  of  collecting  together  capital,  but 
of  avoiding  personal  liability,  and  under  a  name  suggest- 
ing an  individual  rather  than  a  corporate  enterprise. 
Thus  Mr.  John  Smith,  who  has  made  and  laid  away  a 


23 

comfortable  fortune  in  a  corner  grocery,  seeing  disaster 
ahead,  procures  himself  to  be  incorporated  with  a  small 
capital  under  the  name  of  John  Smith,  and  when  called 
upon  by  his  creditors,  assures  them  that  their  contracts 
were  not  made  with  Smith  as  an  individual,  but  with 
Smith  as  a  corporation,  and  that  his  liability  is  limited  by 
his  stock  in  trade.  Corporations  are  formed  under  the 
laws  of  one  State  for  the  sole  purpose  of  doing  business  in 
another,  and  railways  are  built  in  California  under  chart- 
ers granted  by  States  east  of  the  Mississippi,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  removing  their  litigation  to  Federal  Courts. 

The  grossest  frauds  are  perpetrated  in  the  construction 
of  such  roads,  which  are  built  not  by  the  corporation  own- 
ing them,  for  the  best  price  that  can  be  obtained,  but  by 
the  directors  themselves  under  guise  of  a  construction 
company,  another  corporation,  to  which  is  turned  over 
all  the  bonds,  mortgages  and  other  securities,  regardless 
of  the  actual  cost  of  the  road.  The  road  is  equipped  in 
the  same  way — by  another  corporation,  formed  of  the  di- 
rectors, which  buys  the  rolling  stock  and  leases  it  to  the 
road — so  that  when  the  inevitable  foreclosure  comes,  the 
stockholders  are  found  to  have  been  defrauded  for  the 
benefit  of  the  mortgagees,  and  the  mortgagees  defrauded 
for  the  benefit  of  the  directors.  Indeed  the  process  of  re- 
organizing, or  as  it  is  popularly  and  often  properly  known 
as  "  wrecking  "  corporations  in  the  interest  of  the  directors, 
has  become  an  exceedingly  profitable,  if  not  a  very  repu- 
table, industry.  Property  thus  acquired  in  defiance  of 
honesty  and  morality  does  not  stand  in  a  favorable  posi- 
tion to  invoke  the  aid  of  the  law  for  its  protection. 

Worse  than  this,  however,  is  the  combination  of  corpo- 
rations in  so-called  trusts,  to  limit  production,  stifle  com- 


24 

petition  and  monopolize  the  necessaries  of  life.  The  ex- 
tent to  which  this  has  already  been  carried  is  alarming, 
the  extent  to  which  it  may  hereafter  be  carried  is  revolu- 
tionary. Indeed  the  evils  of  aggregated  wealth  are  no 
where  seen  in  more  odious  form.  If  no  student  can  light 
his  lamp  without  paying  tribute  to  one  company,  if  no 
house-keeper  can  buy  a  pound  of  meat  or  sugar  without 
swelling  the  receipts  of  two  or  three  all-pervading  trusts, 
what  is  to  prevent  the  entire  productive  industry  of  the 
country  becoming  ultimately  absorbed  by  a  hundred  gi- 
gantic corporations?  If  a  railway  company  originally 
organized  to  build  a  hundred  miles  of  road,  has  by  fifty 
years  of  consolidations  and  leases,  become  the  undisputed 
master  of  ten  thousand  miles  of  transportation,  what  is  to 
prevent  it,  in  another  fifty  years,  from  monopolizing  half 
the  traffic  of  the  continent? 

Upon  the  other  hand,  railways  themselves  are  not  with- 
out their  grievances.  In  more  than  one  State  they  have 
been  treated  as  if  they  were  the  lawful  prey  of  the  legis- 
lature, and  so  borne  down  by  oppressive  and  discriminat- 
ing taxation,  and  by  suits  for  personal  injuries,  that  they 
are  fain  to  take  refuge  in  that  haven  of  distress  for  weari- 
ed corporations — a  receivership.  The  truth  is  that  the 
entire  corporate  legislation  of  the  country  is  sadly  in  need 
of  overhauling,  but  the  difficulty  of  procuring  concurrent 
action  on  the  part  of  forty -four  States  is  apparently  in- 
superable. They  should  never  be  formed  except  for  ob- 
jects requiring  large  amounts  of  capital,  and  should  be 
absolutely  prohibited  for  farming  or  trading  purposes, 
and  particularly  for  traficking  in  the  necessaries  of  life. 
Their  capital  should  be  no  larger  than  required  for  the 
object  to  be  attained,  and  their  life  should  be  strictly  lim- 


25 

ited  in  point  of  time,  that  they  may  be  wound  up  at  stated 
periods.  Most  important  of  all,  these  laws  should  be  rig- 
idly enforced,  and  not  left  to  the  hap-hazard  of  attorneys 
elected  every  two  years  by  popular  suffrage. 

From  a  wholly  different  quarter  proceeds  the  third  and 
most  immediate  peril  to  which  I  have  called  your  atten- 
tion— the  tyranny  of  labor.  It  arises  from  the  apparent 
inability  of  the  laboring  man  to  perceive  that  the  rights 
he  exacts,  he  must  also  concede.  If,  for  instance,  an  em- 
ployer of  labor  should  discharge  an  employee,  or  refuse 
to  hire  him  because  of  a  difference  between  them  as  to 
wages,  and  should  then  forbid  him  from  obtaining  em- 
ployment elsewhere,  and  should  assault  the  person  and 
burn  the  property  of  any  one  who  proposed  to  give  him 
work,  he  would  naturally  be  considered  a  fit  subject  for 
mental  treatment ;  yet  a  year  never  passes  that  outrages 
of  this  description  are  not  perpetrated  under  the  name  of 
the  rights  of  labor.  Men  are  harried,  assaulted  and  stoned, 
simply  because  they  are  willing  to  work  for  less  than  their 
assailants,  while  property  is  burned,  public  travel  arrest- 
ed and  large  cities  reduced  to  hunger,  that  great  corpora- 
tions may  be  compelled  to  employ  workmen  at  wages 
fixed  by  themselves.  This,  too,  in  a  nominally  free  coun- 
try. 

It  needs  no  argument  to  show  that  such  conditions  are 
intolerable.  The  truth  is  that  labor,  like  every  other  mar- 
ketable commodity,  will  command  such  wages  as  capital 
is  able  to  pay,  and  if  laborers  themselves  do  not  become 
capitalists  by  purchasing  stock  in  their  own  corporations, 
and  thus  becoming  profit-sharers,  or  laying  aside  their  sur- 
plus earnings  in  savings  banks  or  elsewhere,  it  is  because 
they  lack  the  qualities  of  industry  and  thrift  out  of  which 


26 

capitalists  are  made.  While  certain  enterprises  do  un- 
doubtedly return  large  profits,  capital  as  a  rule  does  not, 
or  the  country  would  not  be  strewn  with  the  wrecks  of  so 
many  enterprises.  Laboring  men  may  defy  the  laws  of 
the  land  and  pull  down  their  own  houses  and  those  of 
their  employers  about  their  heads,  but  they  are  powerless 
to  control  the  laws  of  nature  —  that  great  law  of  supply 
and  demand,  in  obedience  to  which  industries  rise,  flourish 
for  a  season  and  decay,  and  both  capital  and  labor  receive 
their  appropriate  reward. 

The  outlook  for  a  permanent  peace  between  capital  and 
labor  is  certainly  not  an  encouraging  one.  The  conflict 
between  them  has  been  going  on  and  increasing  in  bitter- 
ness for  thousands  of  years,  and  a  settlement  seems  farther 
off  than  ever.  Strikes  are  rarely  successful — strikes  ac- 
companied by  violence  almost  never — since  violence  en- 
genders exasperation  which  always  redounds  to  the  bene- 
fit of  the  stronger  party.  When  the  Israelites  went  off 
upon  their  grand  national  strike,  the  first  strike  recorded 
in  history,  they  are  said  to  have  despoiled  the  Egyptians  ; 
but  the  latter,  so  far  from  being  won  over  by  this  argu- 
ment, sent  an  army  to  pursue  them  across  the  Red  Sea. 
On  the  other  hand,  when  the  Roman  Commons,  driven 
to  despair  by  the  oppression  of  the  patrician  class,  with- 
drew peaceably  to  the  Sacred  Hill,  the  latter  were  quickly 
brought  to  terms,  and  conceded  practically  all  they 
demanded. 

Arbitration  is  thought  by  some  to  promise  a  solution 
of  all  these  problems,  and  where  a  dispute  turns  simply 
upon  the  rate  of  wages,  it  may  often  be  a  convenient  method 
of  adjustment.  Yet  its  function  is  after  all  merely  advis- 


27 

cry.  It  cannot  compel  an  employer  to  operate  his  estab- 
lishment at  a  loss — it  cannot  compel  employees  to  work 
for  less  wages  than  they  may  choose  to  demand.  If  it 
could,  it  would  re-establish  slavery  under  the  name  of  an 
award.  The  whole  theory  of  arbitration  presupposes 
voluntary  action — a  voluntary  submission  of  something 
in  dispute — a  voluntary  performance  of  an  award.  Com- 
pulsory arbitration  is  a  misnomer — a  contradiction  in 
terms.  One  might  as  well  speak  of  an  amicable  murder 
or  a  friendly  war.  There  are  certain  things,  too,  which 
cannot  be  arbitrated.  Suppose  a  Labor  Union  should  as- 
sume to  dictate  who  should  be  employed  and  upon  what 
terms,  of  whom  material  should  be  purchased,  and  to 
whom  sales  should  be  made.  This  involves  no  more  nor 
less  than  the  control  of  one's  business,  the  surrender  of 
which  could  not  be  made  without  the  certainty  of  ultimate 
bankruptcy. 

It  is  possible  that  a  compromise  may  finally  be  effected 
upon  the  basis  of  co-operation  or  profit-sharing,  under 
which  every  laborer  shall  become  to  a  certain  extent  a 
capitalist.  The  difficulty  of  securing  a  competent  man- 
ager at  a  salary  which  the  workmen  are  willing  to  pay, 
and  the  necessities  of  the  employees  themselves,  have 
heretofore  proved  an  insuperable  obstacle  to  co-operation 
in  production.  The  faculty  of  accumulation  is  compara- 
tively a  rare  one,  and  without  it,  there  will  be  no  provi- 
sion for  unprofitable  seasons,  in  which  the  capitalist  is 
forced  to  depend  upon  his  accumulated  store.  In  a  few 
instances  the  necessities  of  a  large  family  require  the  ex- 
penditure of  all  the  earnings  of  a  laboring  man,  but  in  a 
majority  of  cases  the  thrift  that  lies  at  the  bottom  of  every 
large  fortune  is  lacking,  and  men  prefer  the  certainty  of  a 


28 

weekly  stipend  to  the  possibility  of  great  profits.  Per- 
haps with  superior  education,  wider  experience  and  larger 
intelligence,  the  laboring  man  of  the  Twentieth  Century 
may  attain  the  summit  of  his  ambition  in  his  ability  to 
command  the  entire  profits  of  his  toil. 

I  have  spoken  to  you  thus  briefly  but  frankly  upon  the 
dangers  which  seem  to  me  to  environ  the  future  of  the 
country,  not  because  I  believe  them  to  be  insuperable, 
but  because  I  desire  to  press  upon  your  attention  the  fact 
that  upon  you,  as  representing  the  legal  intelligence  of 
the  country,  will  be  laid  the  burden  of  averting  them,  and 
of  preserving  intact  the  liberties  of  the  people.  One  of 
these,  that  of  municipal  corruption,  is  peculiar  to  this 
country,  the  others  are  those  in  which  the  whole  civilized 
world  may  be  said  to  have  its  share.  Some  of  them  are 
the  inevitable  fruits  of  that  process  of  consolidation  upon 
which  I  have  dwelt  so  largely  ;  some  of  them  have  come 
upon  us  from  an  indifference  to  political  responsibilities, 
and  a  good  natured  endurance  of  evils  which  are  not  intol- 
erable. In  fact,  patience  under  affliction  is  a  leading 
defect  in  the  American  character.  I  fear  there  is  no 
counterpart  in  this  country  to  the  sturdy  London  butcher, 
who  carried  on  for  years  a  costly  litigation  against  the 
British  Crown,  to  secure  the  privilege  of  walking  through 
Richmond  Park.  Instead  of  applying  the  rule  "  obsta 
principals"  we  are  rather  given  to  submitting  with  easy 
acquiescence  to  encroachments  upon  our  natural  rights, 
until  further  toleration  becomes  impossible,  when  we 
reverse  the  old  maxim,  and  declare  that  what  cannot  be 
endured  must  be  cured. 

Fifty  years  ago,  it  might  have  been  said  of  this  country, 
as  a  recent  writer  has  said  of  the  Dutch  who  represent 


29 

even  more  perfectly  than  the  Swiss,  the  ideal  of  thrift 
with  a  Republican  simplicity  and  contentment,  "  in  Hol- 
land are  to  be  found  riches  without  ostentation,  freedom 
without  insolence,  taxes  without  poverty.  The  country 
goes  on  its  way  without  panics,  without  insurrections, — 
preserving,  with  its  fundamental  good  sense,  in  its  tradi- 
tions, customs  and  freedom,  the  imprint  of  its  noble 
origin."  In  the  vigor  of  our  youth,  the  rapidity  of  our 
growth  and  the  exuberance  of  our  wealth,  we  have 
already  passed  this  stage,  and  are  brought  face  to  face 
with  the  problem,  how  far  great  inequalities  of  condition 
are  consistent  with  the  maintenance  of  a  perfect  equality 
of  rights.  There  never  has  been  a  time  in  the  history  of 
the  country  when  men  of  independent  thought — men  who 
can  neither  be  awed  by  the  mastery  of  wealth  nor  seduced 
by  the  blandishments  of  popularity,  were  more  urgently 
needed  to  guide  the  ship  of  State  with  a  steady  hand. 
Whatever  the  coming  century  may  produce,  I  am 
satisfied  its  material  prosperity  will  suffer  no  important 
check.  Financial  panics  will  doubtless  recur  every 
twentieth  year  with  the  regularity  of  a  planetary  revolu- 
tion, to  be  followed  by  a  cry  for  cheap  money  as  inevita- 
ble as  fever  follows  a  malarial  chill — a  cry  quite  certain 
to  be  drowned  in  the  first  wave  of  returning  prosperity  ; 
but  the  country  as  a  whole  will  grow  richer,  stronger, 
better.  Progress  will  be  made,  but  upon  lines  already 
drawn,  for  nothing  is  surer  than  that  sudden  or  radical 
changes  will  not  be  permanent. 

In  dealing  with  the  evils  which  threaten  our  future 
tranquility  you  ought  to  find  and  doubtless  will  find  an 
efficient  coadjutor  in  a  Free  Press.  Indeed  the  Bar  and 
the  Press  are  the  great  safeguards  of  liberty.  When  we 


30 

consider  what  the  Press  has  shown  itself  capable  of  doing 
—how,  within  the  memory  of  the  present  generation,  a  trio 
of  corrupt  judges  was  driven  from  the  bench  by  the 
relentless  pursuit  of  a  single  daily  paper,  how,  by  another, 
the  practical  autocrat  of  a  neighboring  city  was  forced 
into  exile  and  imprisonment, — how,  in  a  dozen  instances, 
depraved  creatures  of  political  methods  have  been  ousted 
from  the  control  of  great  municipalities,  we  are  able  to 
appreciate  the  great  power  of  the  daily  newspapers  for 
good  or  evil.  Their  peculiarities  may  entertain  us.  We 
may  smile  at  their  claims  to  infallibility  and  omniscence, 
we  may  amuse  ourselves  at  their  smug  satisfaction  with 
their  own  greatness,  we  may  even  question  their  definition 
of  enterprise  so  far  as  it  consists  in  prying  into  domestic 
and  official  secrets,  but  of  their  influence  upon  public 
opinion,  there  is  so  little  doubt,  that  we  are  led  to  regret 
that  it  is  not  oftener  exerted  in  the  right  direction.  Their 
utterances  are  so  generally  moulded  in  their  own  in- 
terests, or  in  those  of  their  immediate  patrons,  that  we 
are  compelled  to  look  upon  them  rather  as  arguments  of 
astute  counsel  than  as  the  deliverances  of  an  unprejudiced 
Court.  But  even  if  they  are  not  to  be  taken  seriously,  if 
they  are  too  willing  to  sacrifice  everything  to  a  reputation 
for  "  smartness,"  if  their  opinions  are  too  often  unsafe 
guides,  there  is  nothing  better  calculated  to  demonstrate 
the  unsoundness  of  such  opinions  than  the  free  publication 
of  them.  Liberty  cannot  exist  where  the  Press  is  not 
free  to  comment  upon  public  questions,  nor  can  private 
character  be  safe,  if  the  law  cannot  protect  it  against  its 
assaults.  But,  with  all  their  faults,  newspapers  are 
indispensable,  and  life  would  lose  half  its  charm  without 
our  morning  journal.  Let  it  be  said  to  their  credit  that, 


31 

in  times  of  great  popular  outcry  against   abuses,  their 
voice  is  generally  upon  the  side  of  reform. 

It  has  been  given  to  the  Nineteenth  Century  to  teach 
the  world  how  a  great  republic  can  be  founded  upon  prin- 
ciples of  justice  and  equality :  it  will  be  the  duty  of  the 
Twentieth  to  show  how  it  can  be  preserved  against  the  in- 
sidious encroachments  of  wealth,  as  well  as  the  assaults  of 
the  mob.  It  will  be  your  privilege  to  demonstrate  that 
great  States  are  as  compatible  with  free  institutions  as 
small  ones,  and  your  duty  to  testify  to  your  wish  that  this 
shall  be  the  best  as  well  as  the  greatest  of  governments, 
by  taking  an  active  interest  in  its  administration,  and  bear- 
ing your  share  of  its  burdens.  The  progess  of  all  civiliza- 
tion has 'been  from  the  reign  of  will  to  the  reign  of  law, 
and,  as  a  rule,  that  government  is  freest  whose  Courts  of 
Justice  are  purest.  Freedom  and  injustice  are  ill-mated 
companions ;  and  at  the  basis  of  every  free  government  is 
the  ability  of  the  citizen  to  apply  to  the  courts  for  a  re- 
dress of  his  grievances,  and  the  assurance  that  he  will 
there  receive  what  justice  demands.  So  long  as  we  can 
preserve  the  purity  of  our  courts  we  need  never  despair 
of  the  Republic.  Of  justice  it  was  eloquently  said  by 
Sidney  Smith  :  "  Truth  is  its  handmaid,  freedom  is  its 
child,  peace  is  its  companion,  safety  walks  in  its  steps,  vic- 
tory follows  in  its  train  ;  it  is  the  brightest  emanation 
from  the  gospel,  it  is  the  attribute  of  God." 


